THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

Many of us in the United States are looking forward to your visit, especially here in Philadelphia, where you will attend the World Meeting of Families. You have told us time and again that the "Church isn't a toll house" but the house of God "where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems."

However, I'm sorry to tell you that, while you have been fostering an atmosphere of dialogue, tolerance and pastoral understanding, all is not well with your family here. There is hate speech and discrimination of a vast scale. Those issues are affecting Catholic families and especially their children. Children of married LGBT couples have been refused entry into your schools and long-standing respected LGBT teachers are being fired from them. The harm this does to children, teachers and their families is palpable, manifesting into further hate.

Sadly, while you call for a Church that listens, encounters and welcomes everyone, our local church has practiced a culture of exclusion. You said two years that ago that "if someone is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?"

Therefore, while you are in Philadelphia, Catholic LGBT organizations from around the nation have joined with the Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld Fund, the developer of Philadelphia's LGBT-friendly affordable senior living facility, to invite you and your representatives to meet those children, teachers and families who are only wishing to dialogue with you and express how their families have been affected.

Mark Segal

Philadelphia Gay News